Joseph Bernstein investigates the dramatic decline of prison uprisings, despite rising prison populations. He notes, “In 1973, we had 93 riots for every 1 million prisoners; in 2003, we had fewer than three”:
Prison demographics have changed, with a higher percentage of nonviolent offenders serving time now than ever before. Many of the most dangerous inmates are now housed in super-maximum-security prisons. New surveillance tactics and restrictions on prisoner movement have been introduced. And prisons are now managed better, thanks in part to federal-court interventions.
But there is one other factor, almost never discussed, that has contributed greatly to the decline:
the development of elite security squads trained to preempt and put down prison disorder of every kind. Often known as Correctional Emergency Response Teams, they have become ubiquitous in correctional facilities over the past 30 years. …
I watched a Michigan CERT put down a 15-person riot in the recreation pen in the North Yard, contained on all four sides by a chain-link fence. I agreed to film the exercise on my phone for a doughy young officer with a shaved head whose e-mail address contained the compound noun meat-shield. Arriving to quell the riot, Michigan marched into the pen and formed up across from the prisoners, dressed in their inmate motley. Spectators pushed up to the fence on all sides. They stuck their fingers and noses through the links and hooted their approval, giving the exercise the ambience of a competitive game of pickup basketball. Michigan, unlike Alabama, made abundant use of their guns: small black semiautomatic carbines that shot dummy rounds meant to simulate pellets of pepper spray. A clicking sound filled the air as the officers emptied their rifles, and modest clouds of powder erupted here and there as the rounds connected with their targets. Michigan brought the inmates to heel in less than five minutes.
(Video: Footage of the Attica Prison riots, which lasted for four days in September 1971)
The Dish 